Yes, if Apple offered an API for the iPhone app to schedule notices directly with their servers, knocking one whole level out of the loop, that would help a lot. Then maybe once an app starts to generate a certain volume of notices, such that it’s no longer “small”, give the developer 3 months to get his own server and update his app to use the new server.

That is not to say PNS does not have advantages, but it does impose a substantial burden on developers. Rene’s suggestion of an Apple-provided PNS service for developers would be a good one in attracting and keeping new developers to the iPhone platform.

@Jordan314

Regarding Google App Engine, as of last week there is a preview release supporting java, as well as many languages that run on the JVM. (Yes, JRuby on Rails can be made to work, with some effort.) If the enrollment is still open, you might want to jump in on it. Even if not, you can still develop locally to get a feel for their environment and restrictions.

I also have been looking at GAE for push, but those restrictions, notably regarding threads, will pose problems for the types of use a PNS notifier service would have. Last week, the Google folks also released a limited cron service for GAE developers, which might be enough for some types of applications, though I have not yet put that through its paces.

I’d much rather have the computational burden and update checks be on the server side as it doesn’t compromise the performance of the device. I still wish Apple would allow a few players through for background audio streaming. I also hope Apple adds voice command across all apps. Otherwise I’m fine with relegating all apps to push notifications, though I hope we see a better integrated notification menu that won’t drive me nuts with non-ignorable pop-ups every few seconds.